Self Shape

"An individual may be [their] own audience" - Erving Goffman

We're used to creating avatars for social media, presenting curated versions of ourselves for public review and aligning with existing movements. According to Erving Goffman, this sort of curation is not something new brought on by social media but rather an extension of human sociality. In Because the Internet, Donald Glover creates a media-rich world for us to enter, challenging us to reconsider the borders between "real" and "fake" and the personas we create, adapt, and perform.

Your Task

This time you're asked to represent yourself beyond what you look like in a photo, and as more than the things you like, consume, or support. Consider this an opportunity to shrug off the symbols others might impose upon you and create a form that is entirely unique. How do you see yourself? And how do you want others to see you?

1. Make a line drawing of a shape that represents you.

2. Fill in the object with color, pattern, material, texture, or a combination thereof.

3. Write a 750-1000+ word blog post that documents your design process and explains the shape you've created. How did you arrive at your shape? Why have you chosen particular colors, patterns, and materials?

How to Do It

• What do you associate most with yourself? Be it part of your body or something outside of yourself, like an activity or passion. Lean away from existing cultural signs.

• Put pen or pencil to paper and see what happens. Feel free to make it as abstract as you like. If you don't want to draw, pick up some scissors and paper, or start to play around in your favorite photo or graphics app and see where it takes you.

• Create more than one. Maybe your first few shapes don't look right, but your seventh is outstanding.

• Scour your desk or recycling bin for bits of material to fill your shape. Cut up an old T-shirt or riffle through your miscellaneous drawer. Take clippings from an old journal of sketchbook. Look for colors, patterns, and textures that appeal to you or that reflect a part of your history.